One of the things that has been made clear in our recent meetings of academy owners is that we all need and welcome help. After working in this for a while. everyone acquires knowledge in something, knowledge which migh help others. So many of us have decided to share it (we all learned through someone […]
I have been trying to write this article for nearly a week now. My apologies for taking so long… it is impossible to make plans these days. I have writen this in a flash, and I am not a TEFL teacher…so please bare with me if I make mistakes. This is like talking to a […]
At Smyth Academy we have been teaching online classe for more than five years now. In Spain it has been a handful to convince people to “go online”. The COVID confinement changed all that. I forced a compulsory online teaching trial on all students. And there’s no stopping it now: education is going digital. This […]
So, as promised, next Friday we will be having the second meeting of Academy Owners (A.O.). I’v been very pleased by both the positive feedback of the first meeting, and the amount of new requests I’ve received this week. As I said to some: “great! The more the merrier”. Thank you to everyone. In order […]
At last! On Friday were finally able to organise something which we had been trying to do for AGES (at least two or three years). Our first meeting of academy owners. Due to obvious reasons, it was online. And, the good news, is that we will be doing this periodically (about twice a month). We […]
The school year is finally starting, and academies are gradually opening their face to face classes. But if schools, having the government, and “comunidades autónomas” behind, still don’t know what protocols to follow, imagine academies (who don’t have anyone to support them). Because, as I’ve said many times here, language associations have been absent for […]
NB: Part of this article is thanks to Cristina Lizarralde, a teacher from a group of TEFL teachers who reminded me we should write an article about ERTEs and IRPF 2020. Thank you Cristina for your contribution. So, did you think the only unpleasant surprises for 2020 were being paid 70% of your salary, or […]
We have all received a blow with this unexpected pandemia. But I am one to extract positive conclusions from even crisis such as this one. I’ve been saying for a long time now, that the way teachers are being hired: often without a contract (what some call “B money” or “money under the table”) with […]
The confinement is over, we have left (I hope) the worst behind. So it is time to prepare for “the new normality” (what an awful term). It is time to evalute TEFL teaching in Spain and how it has been afected by the coronavirus crisis. To think about what went wrong (because too many things […]
Most teachers will be sending CVs to future employers for the next academic year. And many centers are doing their interviews now. During these interviews, due to our current situation, some companies are not taking into account the data protection law. The AEPD, Spanish Data Protection Agency, has just published an article about interviews, candidates […]